If I had, I would have gotten the hell out of there " (Bradley). John Bradley hated the fame the simple photograph had brought him, and the way it ruined his family life. .
Ira Hayes' drinking problem resurfaced after the war because the media was reporting every action he made, eventually leading to his own drunken death. Bradley says Hayes' drinking served as "a defense against his own insecurity " (Bradley). The media had constantly crowded around him and proclaimed how he was a hero, only leading Hayes to be consumed with guilt and insecurity about the way he saw himself. Drinking was the way Hayes comforted himself. Also, Bradley explains that "Ira enjoyed almost everything on the tour except his main assignment: talking to the press and public " (Bradley). Talking to the media about his awful war experiences only made Hayes' want to consume more alcohol to take his mind off of it. Hayes' arrests of drunkenness were said to have been announced by the media so often that "local newspapers highlighted [them] until they grew so common place they were no longer a novelty " (Bradley). The media had followed every move of Ira Hayes' and left him no room to live a normal, quiet life. Hayes' eventually wound up dead of drunkenness because of the media's constant following of him and the pressure they put on him to talk about his experiences. .
It may have seemed as if Rene Gagnon reveled in the fame the photograph brought him, but the fame actually contributed to the troubled life he led. Firstly, James Bradley explains that it was Gagnon's "natural passivity " that led him to accept the seemingly kindhearted and sympathetic pleas from interviewers and reporters (Bradley). It was difficult for Gagnon to turn down the desires of the public to know about his personal opinions and experiences from the war. Secondly, Bradley describes how Rene Gagnon thought "his 1/400th of a second [time it took for Jose Rosenthal to snap the famous flag raising photograph] of fame would pay off " (Bradley).